Pitt Take 5: Noon start vs. Louisville, players' meeting allow Panthers to quickly get back to work

The next game after a loss is always one of the most important of any season.

Coming off a 29-point defeat Tuesday at Duke, Pitt’s players immediately met amongst themselves to quickly dissolve the sour taste and get back to the business of winning games.

“After the game, we came together, we collectively agreed that can’t happen again, and we moved on to the next opponent,” senior guard Ishmael Leggett said. “That wasn’t Pitt basketball.

“Short-term memory definitely comes into play. A loss like that really brings us together more.”

And it becomes a lesson to carry beyond basketball.

“How you respond to things … that’s what life’s about.” he said.

Coach Jeff Capel isn’t worried about how Pitt (12-3, 3-1 ACC) will react Saturday against Louisville (11-5, 4-1).

“These young people, they have short memories, not like us coaches,” Capel said. “They move on to the next play pretty quickly.”

Perhaps it’s good that players and coaches won’t have to sit around all day Saturday waiting to gain redemption. The game tips at noon, a rarity in recent Pitt seasons, but the first of four such starts this year.

“I hope we’re ready,” Capel said. “To me, you have to wake up ready to go. For an afternoon game or an evening game, you get to wake up and go through your whole schedule. Eat breakfast. Have a shootaround. It’s kind of routine. A noon game is very, very different.”

Players will arrive at 8:30 a.m. to begin their game-day routine.

Meanwhile, here are five thoughts from the early stages of the ACC grind:

1. Listen to the Bible

Before ACC football teams lost 11 of 13 bowl games, conference men’s basketball suffered an equally heavy blow in the ACC/SEC Challenge, finishing 2-14. The only winners: Clemson beat Kentucky, and No. 4 Duke gave No. 2 Auburn its only loss. Duke is the lone ACC school in the current Associated Press Top 25.

Asked if he knew the reason for the downswing, Capel said, “I don’t know. I’ve been concentrating on my own team.”

League officials hope it’s just a bad cycle for its two major sports, but Capel chooses not to worry about it, especially because it’s only January, and he has other matters on his mind.

“What does the Bible say? What does worrying do?” he said. “There’s not anything I can do about it. We’re just trying to run our race right now. Some of it is overblown with some of the teams.”

Duke coach Jon Scheyer has similar thoughts.

“Of course, you notice what’s going on,” he said, “but my energy isn’t going to go there.”

The ACC put only five teams in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, but it should be noted that four reached the Sweet 16, three advanced to the Elite 8 and N.C. State went to the Final Four.

Clemson coach Brad Brownell mentioned injuries hurting certain teams this season, including Louisville, Notre Dame and Syracuse. Pitt guard Damian Dunn was hurt early in the Wisconsin loss, basically missing both of Pitt’s nonconference defeats.

There also is change among ACC coaches, with Tony Bennett (Virginia) and Jim Larranaga (Miami) stepping away before the end of 2o24 after Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim and Roy Williams retired.

“It takes a couple of years, at least, to get your lineup settled,” Brownell said. “Get your roster the way you want it, the style of play implemented. There is a little bit of those things that have maybe made (the ACC) not be as successful as we would like as a league”

2. NIL takes a toll

Larranaga, 75, resigned at Miami, in part, because of players’ concerns about their name, image and likeness and how much money they can make.

“What shocked me was after we made it to the (2023) Final Four, the very first time I met with the players, eight of them decided they were going to put their name in the portal and leave,” Larranaga said Dec. 26, the day he resigned. “I said, ‘Don’t you like it here?’ They said, ‘No, I like it here. It’s great.’ But the opportunity to make money someplace else created a situation that you have to begin to ask yourself, as a coach, what is this all about? The answer is that it’s become professional.”

On the ACC coaches conference call this week, Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton was asked about Larranaga’s sudden resignation.

“For him to have the courage to stick with his convictions and what he believed was the best thing to do — not only for his team but for the university and players who played for him — is to be tremendously respected,” Hamilton said. “I talked to very few coaches who really don’t feel some of the similar things that seems to have been on Jim’s mind. I don’t see anything coming in the future that will eliminate the reason why he made the decision that he did.”

3. Louisville no longer a pushover

Brownell is impressed with the job first-year coach Pat Kelsey has done at Louisville (11-5, 4-1), and he said it before the Cardinals defeated his team 74-64 on Tuesday.

“He brings great energy to anywhere he goes, gets his kids to play really hard. They play very selflessly, and they rebound the fire out of the ball. I think he’ll have them where they should be very shortly.”

Louisville (8-24, 3-17 a year ago) defeated Virginia, 70-50, on Jan. 4, the Cardinals’ first victory in Charlottesville in 10 tries.

“I think people feel we are building great momentum,” Kelsey said. “You can feel the energy and excitement in the fan base. That’s really what the revival is all about.”

He said the rebuild has no timeline.

“I don’t know what schedule we’re supposed to be on,” he said. “We just try to make today the most important day in the history of Louisville basketball. It’s important for us to be amazingly consistent in our approach to our preparation and our daily process. We don’t get caught up in results. We believe if you’re just crazy locked in on the present thing and you do that consistently, your results are going to be consistent.

“I don’t ever look at it like, ‘Hey, where are we at right now?’ I look at it as ‘What do we have in front of us right now? And let’s be great at it.’ ”

4. Telling it like it is

Capel spends the most important moments of his day talking to his players. He probably meets with them off the court nearly as much as he works with them on it.

The pregame speech is a big part of his interaction with his guys, but he said it’s not rehearsed.

“Right off the cuff,” he said. “Just like everything. I think you have to be you. That’s what I try to be. I try to speak from my heart and what’s real and tell them the truth.”

5. Austin: Still sore

Zack Austin, who is third in the ACC with 23 blocks, injured his shoulder against Duke and missed the first day of practice Thursday.

“It was really sore Wednesday (the players’ day off),” Capel said. “He was able to do some stuff (Friday) in practice. I think he’ll be able to play. There’s some soreness still there.”